Chuck vs the Instinct, Angst Ending
by KittyGoddess415
Summary: Follows directly from Chuck vs. the Instinct. Couldn't decide whether I wanted a happy or sad ending. This is the angst ending. Dark, character death. You've been warned. Sarah and Casey only, but by no means is this Chasey.


_Chuck vs. the Instinct, Angst Ending_

**A.N. **This follows directly from Chuck vs. the Instinct, disclaimers there, but additional disclaimer here --

**Disclaimer: **Dark. Character death. You have been warned.

* * *

The first call came at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, six years later. She picked up groggily. "Hello?"

_"Just so you know, I am going to get this thing out of my head one day. I will. And when I do, I'm going to live the life that I want with the girl that I love, because I'm not going to let this thing rob me of that, I won't."_

Sarah's heart leapt to her throat as she listened to his painfully familiar voice. The opening volley had been fired.

It was time, and Casey was coming.

***

The second call came in late summer, on what would have been Chuck's 35th birthday. Sarah was at a fundraiser in Chicago, as a bodyguard for a wealthy CEO who loved having a pretty brunette follow him everywhere. It didn't hurt that she could put a 350 pound man on his ass with her pinky.

She'd found working in security was a natural fit when she left the agency, so she'd gone back to brunette, changed her name, forged her papers, started over. One of her crew came over, holding out a phone. "It's for you, Lisa," her assistant said. She frowned and took the phone. "Hello?"

_"Do you think I made a mistake, Sarah?"_ came Chuck's voice. She swallowed hard, remembering that day.

"Do you think I made a mistake, Sarah?" he'd asked after one particularly grueling training session. He'd sprawled on the padded floor of the dojo they'd created for his training. Bruises blossomed all over his body, and he painstakingly cracked his ankles, knees, back, wrists, shoulders -- even his neck, against her advice. "I don't know if I can do this," he'd said, looking up at her. She'd sat down next to him, motioning for him to sit in front of her as she massaged the worst of the knots from his back.

Her voice came from the phone -- Casey had apparently had surveillance even there, in what was supposed to be a safe space.

"I know it's hard," she'd replied. "It was hard for me too, when I was training. But I don't think you made a mistake -- I think you were very brave, and I think you should be proud of all you've accomplished."

She vividly remembered struggling not to reach out to him, not to hug him or reassure him that it would all be okay in the end. That wasn't a handler's job, and she had been ordered and threatened not to cross that line – that probably accounted for the surveillance of their training sessions.

He'd been silent for a while. But then, in a whisper, "Are _you_ proud of me?" he'd asked. And, her heart aching to say more, she'd answered as honestly as she could. "Yes, Chuck, I am. You're one of the best men that I've ever met." He'd leaned his head back to smile brilliantly up at her, basking in her answer. She'd gently run a hand down his face and kissed his forehead, both she and Chuck closing their eyes to enjoy the feeling.

The dial tone served as an unspoken warning – he knew who she was now, where she was. It was only a matter of time.

***

The third call came, as she'd known it would, on the anniversary of his death. She'd tried to go about her business as usual, but had failed miserably as usual. Instead she sat in her apartment, drowning her sorrows in vodka as she did every year, but also waiting for the phone to ring. Her apartment phone, this time, and she smiled bitterly to herself. Casey wanted to be abundantly sure she was constantly looking over her shoulder. "Not quick and clean at all," she thought to herself as she picked up the receiver.

"_Um, Sarah, you know when you think you're gonna die and your whole life is supposed to flash in front of you? That didn't exactly happen for me yesterday, in fact, mostly it was just a list that I saw, a list of stuff that I haven't done, and things that I haven't had a chance to say, so today, today I wanna start crossing things off of my list and this is the first thing that I promised myself that I'd do." _

She closed her eyes against the memory of Chuck stepping closer to her, pulling her just a little closer, her heart starting to pound, as she'd been shocked and thrilled at how perceptive he was, to see through her.

"_We need to break up." _

"_What?"_ She'd been totally taken aback, but kicked herself at the same time for thinking he could see through a trained liar like her.

"_You know, you know, like fake, fake break up our pretend relationship." She'd swallowed hard against all that she wanted to say. "I just can't do this anymore, you know?" he'd continued. "The longer we go, the longer we keep trying to fool people into believing that we're a real couple, the person I keep fooling the most, is me."_

She took another shot of vodka and closed her eyes again as she waited for the dial tone. "I'll see you soon," Casey said. Her eyes flew open as the dial tone sounded.

***

She wanted to run. She wasn't proud of it, she knew she deserved what was finally coming to her. She had asked for it to be this way – if she ran, he would find her. As it was, all she was sure of was when he did catch up to her, it would be a clean shot to the head. If she ran, even that certainty would be gone.

So she stayed. And she went through every day as if everything was normal. As if she wasn't being stalked by a highly skilled assassin, or being slowly driven out of her mind with guilt and grief she'd tried to bury.

She had made it a month after his death before she cried. She hadn't allowed herself to feel or grieve – the closest she'd come was at the funeral. Being the daughter of a con artist taught her how to shed identities easily, but it also taught her that any emotion, any vulnerable moment in the first month after doing so was extremely risky. It was ingrained in her, and the shock of losing Chuck had reduced her to those survival instincts. She had been driven to run back then.

She wouldn't run now.

***

It was November 10th. She didn't know why it was significant. But she walked in from work, closed the door, hadn't even turned on the lights yet. Through the apartment came her own voice.

"_You know, someday when the Intersect is out of your head, and you have the life you've always wanted...you'll forget all about me."_

His voice replied,_ "I seriously doubt that."_

She set her keys down on the sideboard and walked in. Her instincts screamed at her to fight, to survive. Instead, she said to the darkness, "What took you so long?"

Casey replied, "Had some things to set in order. Got the Ring on the run. Had to make it worth it for him."

She closed her eyes as the tears welled. "I'm glad," she whispered. She straightened. "I'm ready," she said.

He grunted an acknowledgment. "By the way, they still blame you, and they still hate you." She heard him release the safety on the gun as her heart clenched. "So do I," he said, and pulled the trigger.

She crumpled to the ground on the neoprene he'd covered her floors with earlier. He coded in for a cleanup to her apartment. As he held the gun to his temple, he murmured, "Semper Fi, Bartowski," to the darkness and pulled the trigger again.

* * *

**A.N. **Warned you, didn't I? I couldn't decide how to end it, so I wrote both endings. Truth to tell I kind of enjoyed this one a little more, don't know if I've pegged Sarah and Casey, but I could see Chuck's death warping the both of them. Let me know if you're still breathing, dear reader? :)

And by the way, November 10th is the Marines Corps' birthday. Semper Fi.


End file.
